More on the Walt Disney World tax loopholes:

In Osceola County, Fla., Walt Disney World receives the farming break on 1,600 acres of pasture, timber and nurseries where it grows plants for its theme parks. The land, worth $194 million, is taxed as if it were worth $12.3 million, according to the county land records office. Disney spokesman Jacquee Polack said the company keeps a buffer of undeveloped land around the park, but she acknowledged some of this property will be developed. It wouldn't be the first time. Much of Celebration, Disney's planned community, is built on land that previously received the agricultural tax break.

Tigger.

More Futurama stories from AT THE FAIR by Meyer Berger.

(July 16, 1939)
General Motors, we learned, wishes IT knew what will become of its futurama when the Fair closes. The thing was built in the old Metro movie lot on upper Second Avenue in 408 sections, each twenty feet by five; the largest size that could be fitted onto a motor truck. It was taken to Whalen Swale in 408 trips and put together in the General Motors building.

The company has received thousands of letters from Fair visitors who want to know where the show will be staged next. Mr. Knudsen and Mr. Sloane and the whole board of directors pitch and toss at night, we're told, trying to hit on some reasonable answer. So far, they don't know.

"It's a real headache," one of the public relations men assured us seriously. "You know this thing was never meant to be a road show." On the contrary, we told him, we thought that was the idea. "Depart, punster," he told us coldly. We left without another word.

Norman Bel Geddes, the designer of the ride, had his own idea for the ride after the Fair's end. Here is something I wrote a few years ago on the ride's sound system, and Geddes's plans for Futurama's post-Fair exhibition.


One more, because I didn't realize it rhymed with anything...

(June 14, 1940)
Working Press beat a General Motors publicity team at soft ball on The Meadow yesterday, 13 to 12. The General Motors Team, wearing baseball togs of the Seventies, rode up in a 1910 motor car. They lost heart in the seventh when the beer ran out. Mr. Harting, the manager, hoarsely called the General Motors battle cry in a futile attempt to rally his men. The call was "Futurama! Futurama! Get in there, lads, and start to hammer!"

Another rickshaw story from AT THE FAIR by Meyer Berger.

(May 11, 1939)
Three chair boys on the Mad Meadow are trying to promote a coast-to-coast, or Fair-to-Fair, chair push. They figure that working one hour on, two hours off, they might cover the continent in about fifty days. Two would ride while one pushed. They think they could do three miles an hour, or sixty miles a day.

So far, though, they have no sponsors. They think they may interest corn-cure people, makers of canned spinach, manufacturers of puncture-proof socks and makers of sturdy shoes. They would carry the usual letters from the Mayor of New York to the Mayor of San Francisco. They think they might even persuade Mr. Farley to let them carry some mail for collectors items.

Mr.Taylor, who supervises the Meadow chair boys, didn't seem to think anything would come of it.

More goodies from AT THE FAIR by Meyer Berger.

In this one, the author neglects to mention (because it was common knowledge at the time) that the automobiles in question were scale models in the animated diorama:

(May 11, 1939)
Lord Dunsany has a story about a man who wished that he might see a complete newspaper containing the news a year ahead. Customers at the General Motors futurama, showing motor traffic as it will look in 1960, did better than that yesterday. Sitting in 1939, they saw three automobiles tear up a highway in 1960 in a terrific crackup. One of the cars shot over an embankment, just as cars do in 1939, under similar conditions. The accident held up the show for about twenty minutes.

Two odd stories...

(May 5, 1939)
A hungry Fair-goer, watching the mechanical apple sorter at the electrified farm, grabbed one of the pippins off the carrier belt and bit into it. He threw it back, unharmed. The apples are made of soft rubber, painted and shellacked.

Directly behing the amusement zone (which, incidentally, has not yet been named) rises a cemetery ridge, bristling with tombstones and mausoleums. Fair officials were supposed to screen off this incongruous background by planting a row of tall trees. They just haven't gotten around to it.

It's might not have been the official name of the motorized touring chairs, but if it wasn't, "buzz-wagon" is a pretty good coinage. (This ride, by the way, is illustrated on the cover of my book.)

(May 6, 1939)
The rickshaw boys and buzz-wagon operators (they're one and the same; just alternate from the motor chairs to the arm-pushed go-cars) assemble at night and swap stories about the celebrities they meet. One of them got a $10 tip from a Swedish count, but couldn't quite make out his customer's full name. Mrs James Roosevelt was voted the favorite rider. "She's so natural and friendly," one of the lads said. On foot duty, the rickshaw boys have figured, they cover from twelve to eighteen miles a day.

Carnys are still touchy about this term.

(May 19, 1939)
Nate Eagle of the Dufour & Rodgers Syndicate, who is supposed to be the best side-show spieler in the carnival business, complains that he is a little impatient with writers who refer to midway "barkers." "Barkers," Mr. Eagle explained in his rich baritone, "is distinctly a corny term. There are no barkers. In the World of Tomorrow, friend, we call them 'talkers.' " We assured him we'd spread the word.

To be fair about this next one, people weren't familiar with the concept of theming in 1939...

(no date)
A Fair corporation health inspector bustled up to L.P. Elkins, the New Hamshire man at New England States exhibit, yesterday and demanded a look at the New England public market for possible violations. Mr. Elkins pointed to the printed legend on the brick wall of the building beside the wharf. "I see that," the inspector told him, "but where's the market?" Mr. Elkins patiently explained. There is no market. The wharf and the buildings simply represent a New England seaport as it looked back in 1860, signs and all. The health inspector went away, looking very unhappy.

A Robert Benchley-esque interlude:

(Aug 10, 1939)
Mr. McIver, who opens the mail and listens to Boy Scout messengers play "Donkey Serenade" on very tinny flutes, didn't seem to have the energy to lift his head when we came in. "A man," he told us, thickly, "left a banana." We went out and got some cold milk from the press club room, but Mr. McIver was right. A man from United Fruit had popped in and put a banana on our desk. Cut into the skin was a Trylon, Perisphere, and our name in capital letters. "He didn't leave any other message," Mr. McIver muttered, and fell asleep on one of Leo Casey's pre-noon releases.

Proof that the carnival spirit always wins out over anything with a high-minded name:

(Aug 11, 1939)
Educational note: The World's Fair information service listed in its bulletin yesterday an item that said; "The Temple of Knowledge, located near the Midway Inn, is closed. Dart game now operating. Three darts for 10 cents with prizes for breaking the balloon targets."

The voice synthesizer "Pedro the Voder" was a popular attraction at the A.T. & T. Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair. The voder was a real-time voice synthesis machine, controlled by a woman sitting at a device that looked very much like a court stenographer's transcription machine. Again from the column AT THE FAIR by Meyer Berger:

(Jul 10, 1939)
Western Union in the World of Tomorrow got a telegram the other day for a Mr. Corbin in the A. T. & T. exhibit. It was turned over to one of the brighter couriers, with orders that he try to find Mr. Corbin in the south lobby of the A. T. & T. Building. No one seemed to know where Mr. Corbin was, and the crowds in the place confused things.

This courier, though, was something unusual. He frowned over the problem awhile and suddenly brightened. He edged his way throught the audience around Voder, the talking man, and whispered to the interlocutor. The interlocutor whispered something to the girl who operates Voder's mechanical larynx. Pretty soon the south lobby was filled with Voder's muffled but vibrant call for: "Mr. Corbin, puh-please. Paging Mr. Corbin." We'd like to be able to tell you that Mr. Corbin rushed up all of a sweat, but it didn't work out that way. Mr. Corbin, more's the pity, still wasn't around.

The other popular attraction at the A.T. & T. Pavilion was the free long-distance telephone call. Every few minutes, a winner would be chosen from an audience of around three hundred, and would be given a brief phone call anywhere in the United States. The catch was, the rest of the audience got to listen in.

(Jan 6, 1940)
A quiet little woman atonished eavesdroppers in the A. T. & T. free long distance room the other day by calmly asking for a man held in a jail in Kansas. The warden, when the operator told him, "This is a call from the New York World's Fair; people are listening in," seemed a little puzzled. He brought the prisoner out, finally, and the woman exchanged cheery hellos with the fellow; talked about her good fortune in winning the call. "Tell the people what you're in for," she prodded. "There's 300 people listening." The prisoner said he was in for beating up a man. "Well, that's all," the quiet little woman said. "My time's up."

"Mine ain't," the man said, bitterly, but he put up the receiver.

The Holy Grail of ride soundtracks is the 1939 General Motors Futurama at the New York World's Fair. It seems to be lost to the ages, but a fragmentary, re-written verson survives as the soundtrack to the 1940 GM promotional film To New Horizons. The second half of that movie gives you a good idea of what the ride was like. There's also a silent, amateur film of the ride here.

Today I discovered a New York Times column that covered the exposition, AT THE FAIR by Meyer Berger. Plenty more to follow in the next few days, but for now, here's some Futurama info from the column.

(May 30, 1939)
When you come off the chairs after the 17-minute ride through General Motors' futurama the polite attendant asks how you liked it. He put the question, the other day, to a middle-aged woman whose eyes seemd to brim with tears. "I loved every moment of it," she told him, with some emotion. The attendant was slightly puzzled. No other Fairgoer had acted quite that way. The woman seemed to sense this. "I loved it," she hastened to add, "because I was so proud of my boy. His voice is so beautiful." Turned out she was the mother of Edgar Barrier, one of Orson Welle's players. Barrier recited the description of the futurama, the one you hear as you go around. She waited in line for her chance to get in, too, just like the other visitors.

(Jun 4, 1939)
More amazing than the General Motors futurama is the intricate mechanism under the meadow that works it. If the chairs should stick, as they do every now and then, a man at the underground monitor board gets a distress signal. It shows up on on an electric board. When the chairs stop, for any reason, a soothing voice automatically is switched on and comes through all the chairs' speakers, telling the customers everything is all right, or soon will be. If there's a long delay the man at the board is prepared to play Strauss waltzes or all of Dvorak's "New World Symphony" to the people in the chairs. He has enough music to run for three hours. So far, though, no tie-up has lasted more than a few minutes.

(May 13, 1940)
Our General Motors operative called across the meadow with a report on an interruption in the Futurama show on Saturday. Seems the sound track broke down and the control room substituted a phonograph record while adventurers into 1960 lolled in the chairs. The record was the new "Apple Tree" song. It got to the line "...and they hung him," and stuck. "...and they hung him" ... "and they hung him," it kept saying. Our man, a fussy one for detail, reports they hung him thirty-one times before they resumed the trip into the World of Tomorrow.

My fantasy combination... come true.

Tikis & Amusement Parks - together at last.

Click here.

HUSSY FIT:

"In a strongly-worded statement, Wolfgang Richter, president and CEO of HUSS Maschinenfabrik, has said that the free-fall tower involved in an accident in Korea last weekend was not manufactured by HUSS. 'Though the ride is similar in appearance to the popular HUSS free-fall tower, Shot'n Drop, the construction of the HUSS tower is completely different.' "

RIDE THEORY TIDBIT OF THE DAY:

"In one of the more dramatic moments of (Amelia) Earhart's childhood, she, her sister, and a neighbor boy built a roller coaster at the family's home in Kansas City. The track began at the top of a tool-shed, about eight feet off the ground. The children, with a little help from their Uncle Carl Otis, constructed the track from boards and greased it with lard. Amelia made the trial run in a car made from an empty wooden crate.

"As her sister recalled, Amelia 'rode the crate down the track much faster than either of us anticipated. As it careened down the track, we heard the sound of splintering wood. The car and Amelia departed the track when the car hit the trestle. Both tumbled onto the ground. Amelia jumped up, her eyes alight, ignoring a torn dress and bruised lip. She exclaimed happily, "Oh, Pidge, (a pet name for Muriel) it's just like flying!" ' "

At the Amelia Earhart Museum, there is a 1/2 scale model of the coaster.

The very original and simple carnival ride The Coaster at Burning Man.

Mini Gay Day at Disneyland is April 3. This is an offshoot of the larger Gay Day event, intended mostly for people who live nearby. Last year, the mini-event drew 5,000 people.

The Radio Journal of Ride Theory is now available through Tower Records. I don't know how I feel about that. It's just something CD Baby does.

Dumbass, homophobic snowboard company Ride issues half-assed apology for dumbass, homophobic slogan.

(Thanks and a tip of the tricorn to Julianne Shepherd for breaking the story.)

Disney parks aren't the only amusement parks that monkey with tradition. This season, Kennywood changed the Old Mill ride into Garfield's Nightmare.

One lone voice in the wilderness cries out "Save Michael Eisner!"

Danny's Land is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Peter Ustinov. In addition to his illustrious career as an actor, writer and raconteur, Ustinov had two small ride theoretical connections -- here's the first story as it appears in my own book, The Journal of Ride Theory Omnibus:

"...Walt dreamed of making [a] Disneyland film, Khrushchev in Disneyland, a fantasy based on the imagined aftermath of the Soviet premier’s real visit to the United States in 1959. When Khrushchev reached California, the American Secret Service told him he would not be allowed to visit Disneyland because they couldn’t guarantee his security. He held a press conference where he threw one of his famous tantrums, asking, 'What is it; are there rocket launching pads there?' (Well, there was a Rocket to the Moon...) Ultimately, Khrushchev announced the Soviet Union would build 'Miracle Land,' a bigger, better and way, way more fun park than dumb stinky old Disneyland anyway, so there! (Never built, by the way.)

"In Walt’s planned movie, Khrushchev, played by Peter Ustinov, sneaks away from his Secret Service escorts, visits the park incognito, and -- this being a 1960s live action Disney picture -- zany results ensue. Ustinov looked forward to playing the role, and told Walt that he planned to base his portrayal of Khrushchev on his own Russian mother. When Walt died in 1966, the movie was scrapped."

Ustinov also makes a cameo in Disneyland's The Pirates of the Caribbean. His portrait, painted for the 1968 Disney movie Blackbeard's Ghost was added as part of the pirates' swag in the 1990s.

"One-time Disney contractor Mark Hurt turned his Georgia home into a look-alike of the Haunted Mansion attraction found at Disney amusement parks. We'll find out how and why he did it, and we'll give you a blood-curdling tour of Hurt's haunting renovations, tonight on Tech Live."

More here.

"If I have one gripe on this planet it is those signs at Disneyland that say you must be taller than a certain level to go on this ride." -- Matt Roloff

If Disneyland is too big, build your own little Disneyland. Meet Matt Roloff, president of Little People of America, who built the semi-private amusement park Roloff Farms in his back 40. Roloff Farms is complete with a pirate ship, 1950s fire truck, swimming hole, castle, old west town, gold mine, giant tree house, restored barn, water slides and about 300 feet of underground tunnels. And the beauty part is, he built most of it out of discarded junk.

Interesting New York Times article here, pictures from that article here.
(Danny's Land follow-up: here.)